Is there even a connection between games and learning? Popular opinion and mainstream media seem to suggest that games, if anything, are the antithesis to learning.

 

On the other hand, we can also argue that games are about learning. We can observe how play helps us experiment with new identities, safely explore choices and consequences, and push the boundaries of a system. Games provide access to new worlds and alternate systems of values, past moments of history, and social interaction with people from diverse cultures, perspectives, and experiences. Games can situate learning in authentic contexts, such as environmental disaster zones for science learning, physical battle sites for history learning, foreign countries for language learning, or even in real texts for literature and literacy learning. Essential skills—from math facts acquisition to vocabulary building to civic literacy—could be taught through games, if the games were properly designed. The potential for teaching complex thinking skills—such as creativity and innovation, ethical thinking, design and problem solving, systems thinking, and computational understanding—also seem to be suggested by burgeoning research.

​

Our organization is dedicated to unraveling the complexities around learning and games--designing, using and assessing learning through games--and also investigating contexts, policies, audiences, technological and logistical considerations.

 

How do we properly assess learning through games? Under what conditions are games effective in education? When are games appropriate for a particular learning context or goal? How do we balance fun and accuracy, facts and skills, content and context, and innovation and tradition in games? What are the potentials, limits, and pitfalls? To what extent can mainstream games, or games whose primary goal is not learning, help teach us? How do we make learning meaningful, significant, thick, rich, and relevant? 

​

​